Tv Monopoly Works Best At Olympics

CARPENTER

Thank you, Paul. I am happy to use your space to respond to all those hicks in the Lehigh Valley area who have been griping about our coverage of your local hero at the Olympics.

So Marty Nothstein of Trexlertown got a silver medal in sprint cycling and we at NBC-TV delayed letting you know about it for nearly seven hours. Big deal.

We have more important fish to fry. For example, there was our interminable profile of a Cuban athlete and how he scrunched up a Mercedes he had won as a prize in a prior competition. Isn't that better than showing you what's going on at the Olympics at the moment?

Besides, we know our audience. We determine demographics by watching our industry's prime-time TV programs, and as far as those programs are concerned, the center of the universe is Venice Beach, Calif.

Therefore, NBC devoted hour after hour to that most awesome and physically demanding of all Olympic sports, beach volleyball.

We figure that's what Americans want to see, dude. Otherwise, why do so many watch "Baywatch?"

In addition to beach volleyball, we know our audience prefers to listen to our highly paid NBC talking heads explain things. That's better than looking at an event yourself; you could get confused.

NBC is also a good corporate citizen. That's why we devoted so much air time to a junkie boxer. This pug is now sure to make millions despite his little problem with crack cocaine, and we're proud to offer him and his mom, endlessly, as examples for young people. You, too, can smoke dope and then be a success.

Actually, we at NBC have the

same contempt for boxing that any civilized person has, but we like the format: three minutes for action and one for commercials. Can't beat that advertising time ratio.

Speaking of advertising, you know we get around $1 million a minute for commercials. That's why we were willing to pay $456 million to nail down our right to provide monopoly TV coverage of the Olympics.

That way, you hicks can't be switching channels to watch what you want. You may recall the TripleCast coverage at Barcelona; it proved that giving people a choice is less lucrative than the monopoly approach.

As you may have noticed, we avoided telling you when we planned to air Nothstein's event, etc., so you had to stay glued to your set all day.

People who work at newspapers, such as the guy who usually fills this space, learned about Nothstein's silver medal at 12:46 p.m. on Sunday. That's when The Associated Press moved its story on the sprint event.

We at NBC didn't air it until well after 7 p.m., and then we used what we call the "plausibly live" snow job to make you think we were bringing you prompt coverage. Boy, you chumps will believe anything.

So we keep you waiting while we show our commercials and run features about a diver's teddy bear, or even those dumb features in which one of our talking heads does some shtick about the Olympic experience.

By the way, I wish someone would tell me why so many people with Lehigh Valley connections are doing so well at the Olympics.

In cycling alone, in addition to Nothstein, Lehigh Valley Velodrome regulars like Brian Walton, Brian McDonough, Curt Harnett, Gary Neiwand and Lucy Tyler Sharman all did well. Walton, Harnett and Sharman won medals and Neiwand took fourth in the sprint. Also, I hear that Nothstein and field hockey Olympian Cindy Werley are both products of the same school, Emmaus High.

Mighty suspicious, if you ask me. Y'all must be putting uppers in the water or something. I think I'll send NBC's crackerjack investigative reporters to dig up some dirt on your area for our "Dateline" show.